A final farewell to John C. Crosbie
The final farewell to John C. Crosbie crossed history and party lines.
The state funeral for Crosbie featured an estimated 800 people inside the Anglican Cathedral in downtown St. John’s.
Among them were Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, former prime ministers Brian Mulroney and Joe Clark, current and former Newfoundland and Labrador premiers Dwight Ball, Danny Williams, Paul Davis, Brian Tobin and Tom Rideout, and dozens of dignitaries gathering to pay their respects.
“If a prime minister of Canada is lucky, and I mean really lucky, he gets to have a John Crosbie in his cabinet,” Mulroney said in his eulogy for Crosbie. “One, not two.” Mulroney listed popular – and not so popular – achievements by his government, supported by Crosbie.
“The Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement, NAFTA, a wave of privatizations, deregulations, reductions in the federal deficit, the introduction of inflation reduction targets and price stability, historic tax reform that included the GST – that was John’s idea, not mine,” Mulroney said, to laughter from mourners.
Crosbie's son, Ches Crosbie, the current leader of the Opposition, bid farewell to his father in his own eulogy at the Cathedral – the same church his father and mother, Jane, got married in, on Sept. 8, 1952.
“Dad revelled in his role as parent. Michael, Beth and I always knew we were cherished. As grandchildren and greatgrandchildren came along, his heart grew – a size larger with each child,” Crosbie said.
“While many knew him as a giant in the world of politics, for us, John Crosbie was a gentle giant in the life of our family.”
Crosbie quoted his mother from remarks given at Crosbie’s 25th anniversary of political life.
“John has worked with two Joes, one Frank, two Brians, but only one Jane.”
Former Liberal premier Brian Tobin, clad in a sealskin coat worn in honour of Crosbie’s advocacy for the seal hunt in Newfoundland and Labrador, says even though they found themselves on opposite sides of the ideological divide, Crosbie was a man of great character.
“John is one of those guys, as passionate as he is, as energetic as he is, as combative as he is, he never had a mean bone in his body, I don’t think, at the end of the day,” Tobin said.
“If there’s a calm today and a storm to follow, it’s because John just arrived in heaven and he ran into Joey (Smallwood). The thunder, the lightning, the snow and the wind is about to hit. These two are probably continuing an age-old debate.”
Former Progressive Conservative premier Paul Davis, noting the dozens of parishioners wearing sealskin on Thursday, wondered when the next great advocate will come to fill Crosbie’s shoes.
“He loved this province, he loved this people and he loved this country. He was very loyal to all those causes,” Davis said.
“I notice here today a lot of sealskin. I have a little bit. I know that he was such a fighter for the seal industry. I don’t know who else that is, today. I don’t know who that’s going to be. But someone needs to carry on some of those important works that he continued to be loyal to. It’s the end of an era.”
In his eulogy, Ches Crosbie quoted words from William Shakespeare, which John Crosbie spoke at the funeral for his brother, Andrew Crosbie, in 1991.
“His life was gentle, and the elements so mixed in him that Nature might stand up, and say to all the world: ‘this was a man.’”